There was no stopping her. He died on his eleventh day, dead of winter, and he was getting cold. So tiny. So small. A week and a half old, just changed enough from his first moments to start to look like her and to start to look like me. It was a start. Eleventh day. Eleven. Elf. Elfin boy he’d have been now. Sweet eleven. She measured him and got out her best wool she had been saving. Measured him around. Circled his little body. Cannot make a circle without eleven. Measure a circle seven across and it will measure eleven halfway around. Seven and eleven, a thread between square and circle. Square the circle and maybe. Maybe eternity. Find him there. She orbited around him as he cooled. She is the moon and while she knit he was her whole world. She orbited and he cooled in 3:11 ratios. Moon:Earth, he took on enormous proportions but she would knit for him. She had wool and time had stopped. Oh the ground. The Earth is cold in winter and his sweet little body was cooling. Pull the moon to the earth. Pull her close, the three to the eleven. Now circle them. I circled them. I circled them in radii of seven. Our circumference was 44, the same as the perimeter of a square around Rudy, named for my self-murdered father, my whole world. She knit, I circled for the length of his body cooling. She measured. She chose her needles and her best wool she had been saving. Soft, no itch, 4 ply dk merino. And she swatched. She measured. She cast on 32 stitches and knit two rows. Then she knit 2 * yfd k2tog, to end k1. Next row K. The next row she k2 * and she made 1 in the next of each stitch to the last k3. Next row K. Next row K3, P to last 3 then K. He cooled, she knit in patterns: K4 *k1B k1 to last 3 sts k3, next row k, k5 k1B *k1 k1b to last 5 sts k5, next row k and she continued for five inches. Then she k6 k2 tog k1 to the last 5 sts k5. I circled. I squared. She k3 P to last 3 K3. I circled. She K3 yfd K2 tog to last 2 sts K2. I squared. K3 P to last 3 K3. He cooled. The perfect square lacks corners. She K2 tog, knit in pattern to the last 4 sts and she k 2tog twice. Then a row of K she knit. She knit for two more inches. The wrong side facing, all wrong, k to the middle, k 2 tog twice, k to the end. The next wrong row she did it again. And the next wrong row she did it again. One last row in pattern. Last time. Then our sweet, our little, our baby love. We placed him inside. We put in our kisses, warm to cold. Weeny hands. Smallest love. Our sweet circle. Our whole world. Then the seam. She grafted 32 stitches and snipped the yarn with her teeth. Basta. Enough.

Scene: [An impromptu meeting at the shrine of St. Foutinus. A statue of St. Foutinus stands erect in an impressively sized bathtub allowing a variety of palmers and bedesmen to pour their wine offerings over his genitalia while those unable to be delivered of their spleen of lustihead leave wax images of their withered members in hopes a redress God grant. Doesn’t hurt to try.]

Averroes: [Holding a small lump of wax] What are you doing here?

Moses Maimonides: [The wounds on his face infected in places, pus oozing past stitches] I’m not speaking to you yet. Hlo Lilith. Are you allowed to swim in there?

Lilith: [Naked. Floating on her back in St. Foutinus’ tub.] Not really. But Foutinus and I have a little understanding, don’t we darling.

St. Foutinus: Screech owl! Night hag!

Lilith: He’s a little stiff at the moment. What are you doing here. Oh, I see. Sorry. Averroes, didn’t you have enough wax?

Averroes: Never you mind! You should get out of there, you could get pregnant that way.

Lilith: Oh honey, if that’s what you think no wonder you can’t get it up.

Moses Maimonides: Idiot.

Averroes: I though you weren’t speaking to me. Besides it’s true. St. Ultan bathes in cold water on windy days, just to avoid it. He’s got enough mouths to feed.

Moses Maimonides: You just told Lilith she could get pregnant. Dumbass. Don’t you know who she is? She is the inception of termination. She is the eraser of mistakes. She is the darkness at the end of the tunnel, the reliever of stomach bloat and frequent urination, the great evacuator. She’s what’s between a woman and her doctor. She takes care of it. She is the saver of the mother’s life! Might as well tell her the wind will get her pregnant.

Lilith: Oh is Zephyrus here? He blows both ways you know.

Moses Maimonides: [After a pregnant pause] Does he?

Averroes: [Dissembling, as his wont was] My apologies Lilith, but what are you doing bathing in there? That vinegar cures barrenness!